Obama, the reluctant realist

"Individuals make history, but sometimes the process reverses itself and history makes individuals. President Barack Obama may have wanted to bomb Syria, and he certainly did want to meddle in Libya – where the results of his disastrous 'humanitarian' intervention backfired badly -- and yet his presidency will go down in history as a moment when American imperialism hit the pause button. This is not to negate his interventionist record or ambitions: it is only to say that the ability of the United States to intervene massively has run up against the inherent limitations of such a policy. This is underscored by the foreign policy section of President Obama’s State of the Union speech." (01/31/14)